I’m really surprized to see Martin in there today. He had an extremely tough night last night and Az really pushes it when they get on base. A fresh catcher is a must !! Drew had a great night and I can see him doing it again tonight, lets hope he’s working toward a big finish to 2006. Sad to see Gio go but something had to be done.
Go Dodgers !!

Gary, Martin’s a young pup and can handle it. I’m sure he’s lobbied long and hard to Grady to keep him in the lineup tonight. I think you underestimate Martin’s ability to recover quickly. He’ll play well, just wait and see.

Testing out the comment capability, Josh. First time I’ve heard of that (on your previous post), will follow up with our Six Apart partners if further reports of an “anti-spam blocker” experience. Am not aware of it in our past year of MLBlogging. I know there has been a troll on Giants blogs that we’ve had to deal with, and obviously the prime suspect would be a Dodger fan because, well, the obvious. But since multiple people here said there was an issue, I don’t think it’s related to that. Anyone can feel free to comment on my MLBlogs community blog below with any such experience.

I’ll bite! Way to go Jeff Kent! What did I say earlier in the week about the pitching getting better against us? Well, San Diego threw us really tough, and Arizona is trying to do the same thing. We need gritty at bats from guys like Jeff Kent, late in the game and pulling off a victory. Way to go TEAM in picking up Derek Lowe tonight. Good thing it’s only the glove hand, so let’s hope he makes his next start.

1) Ned Colletti had been getting a lot of credit for the recent run of success the Dodgers had over the last few weeks. The man tonight, though, was the other mustached Dodger, Jeff Kent. A home run in the top of the 9th not only put the Dodgers up and let Saito get back on track with the save, but reminded us that he can still get the job done.

2) Derek Lowe, were it not for a line drive to the left hand, would have been the game’s hero after going 7 or 8 solid innings and resting the bullpen. He pitched well, though, and (pardon the hearsay) Dodger Thoughts posters report that Vin Scully said that preliminary reports said it was a bruise and the x-rays were negative.

3) Tim Hamulack, the guy remaining from the Duaner Sanchez/Jae Seo trade, had a nasty start. While Gio wasn’t great, one had to wonder how good Hamulack would be. He came back with a 1-2-3 inning, striking out 2, making a good impression after his callup. The next step for him will be nailing Barry Bonds somewhere other than the body armor.

4) You didn’t have to be a current Dodger to have a good night. Shawn Green and Paul LoDuca each had two hits and Guillermo Mota pitched two perfect innings striking out two. Adrian Beltre tied the game with a home run to lead off the 8th inning as the Mariners beat the Red Sox. Good night for Dodgers.

5) At the very surface, Chad Billingsley has an ERA 2 runs less than Livan Hernandez, which would seem to favor Chad. Billingsley had his first 7 inning start of his major league career in Chase Field, so it’s not an unfamiliar park. August has been his best month yet, not only because he’s 2-0 with a 1.57 ERA, but because he’s got more strikeouts than innings pitched, and a K/BB of 2.18, so his peripherals support his success a bit more. Hernandez is durable (unless hit hard early), but clearly beatable.

Thank goodness for Jeff Kent! Before he got it done, something like twelve batters were retired in a row … and the team won’t be a consistently good team until we’ve shaken that bug out of our lineup, and start getting hits after the third or fourth inning consistently.

All the same, a feel-good win, lifting our 1-run record to an approaching OK 13-16 ( but for a 2-run bomb, we would have lost a 1-run game yesterday! )

With the pen really used up, we need to look to tomorrow’s starter to throw strikes and go seven.

Why Hamulack? That’s simple is because none of them pitcher have major league experience except Kuo. Since the mod being picky and delete my post for no reason here are his minor league stats. I know Hamulack wasn’t good when he was call but he’s was going to be call on Sept anyway and his number and the minor deserve his call up now.

I’m not impressed with those AAA numbers 56 runners allowed and less than 2-1 strikeout to walk ratio and 9 runs allowed. looks like he is still walking too many and not throwing strikes. Gio was having problems out there but I guess we don’t have alot of options.

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